REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
IN PHONE CALL TO KMOX RADIO, ST. LOUIS
Aboard Air Force One
En Route to St. Louis, Missouri

11:07 A.M. EDT

REPRESENTATIVE GEPHARDT: Hi, Kevin and Charles. We want
to welcome the President of the United States today. We're on Air
Force One, and we're going to be in St. Louis in a few minutes. And
we welcome the President to our great city.

Q And we welcome you, Mr. Clinton, to the voice of St.
Louis, KMOX Radio.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. It's good to be on KMOX, and
it's good to be coming back to St. Louis.

Q Good to have you back in St. Louis. You're here for a
fundraiser tonight for Dick Gephardt. And that pretty much brings me
to my first question because on Wednesday evening, you attended a
$15,000 a plate, rather a table -- $1,500 a plate dinner - -- a
fundraiser for the Democrats. And some people say that this runs
contrary to your pledge when you were running as Governor Clinton for
the presidency to try and limit the influence of corporations and
special interests and lobbyists and wealthy individuals and their role
in the democratic process. But here you are raising since July of 1992
$40 million in what's called soft money for the Democratic Party. How
do you justify this?

THE PRESIDENT: I justify it because of the opposition
policies of the Republican Party and all the special interest groups
that have raised and spent far more money against us, attacking me and
my policies and spreading disinformation to the American people. Let me
say that all this time, ever since I've been in office, I have worked
hard to pass a campaign finance reform bill, which would limit these
kinds of contributions right across the board to both political parties
and restore basically unfettered debate to the central position it ought
to have in our political system.

But I don't believe in unilateral disarmament. The money
that I have raised will be used to try to make sure that the Democratic
parties throughout the country in these fall elections and our
candidates will at least have fighting chance to talk about our record
and the facts and what we've done here. If we could change the rules
for everybody, that's what we ought to do.

When I ran for President, I didn't even take any PAC money.
And I have worked very, very hard to pass campaign finance reform laws
and lobby reform laws, which will make the system better. But until I
do, it would be a mistake for the Democrats to just lay down and not
raise any money, letting the Republicans and a lot of their allied
groups have all the money in the world when they already have greater
access to a lot of things like a lot of other media outlets than we do.

Q Wouldn't you be setting a leadership example, though, if
you were the first one to say, look, these $15,000 a table fundraisers
basically are way out of hand; I've got to put an end to this?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I'm trying to put an end to it. All
the Congress has to do is to send me the campaign finance reform bill,
and we'll put an end to this so-called soft money. I've been working
for a year and a half to do it. But if -- we have enough problems. The
Republicans and the far right in this country have their own media
networks. We don't have anything like that. They have extra organized
political action groups that we can't match. And they have the
Republican Party's fundraising apparatus, which has been strengthened by
having had the White House for all but four years in the last 20 years.

So we have real problems competing. I am more than happy
to stop this. I've been out there fighting to stop it. All they have
to do is to send me the campaign finance reform bill and it'll be done.

REPRESENTATIVE GEPHARDT: Let me add this. This
administration and this President has done more to advance campaign
reform and lobby reform than any administration in the history of the
country. And the Congress is about three or four weeks away from
putting on his desk both bills that he's asked for that would limit that
amount that can be spent to campaign and would vastly limit the
activities of a lobbyist.

THE PRESIDENT: I'd like to emphasize that. The things
that are within my control, requirements and limits on my administration
and what can be done with regard to lobbying, are stricter now than they
have ever been in American history because of the things that I've done,
that I can do on my own. And I want this campaign finance law to
change. But we ought to change it by the law, and we ought to change it
for everyone.

Q Mr. President, the -- here, where we sit everyday and
you listen to people complain about the influence of money and politics
-- and I guess you hear a lot of cynicism. Do you get the sense that
the American people are becoming more cynical, becoming less tolerant?
Do you get the sense that there is some hatred abroad in the land?

THE PRESIDENT: Absolutely. I think there's too much
cynicism and too much intolerance. But if you look at the information
they get, if you look at how much more negative the news reports are,
how much more editorial they are and how much less direct they are, if
you look at how much of talk radio is just a constant unremitting
drumbeat of negativism and cynicism, you can't - - - I don't think the
American people are cynical, but you can't blame them for responding
that way.

We, for example -- we had a meeting the other day, and a
group of people were told that under our budgets we were going to bring
the deficit down three years in a row for the first time since Harry
Truman was President. And some of them said, well, I just don't believe
you. We never hear that on the news -- I just don't believe you.
(Laughter.) It's a fact. I've worked hard to do it. And we're going
to -- we're bringing the deficit down. That's what bothers me.

You know, I just got back from Normandy, celebrating the
50th anniversary of D-Day. And when I stood on Normandy beaches, and
when I saw all those rows of crosses there, it occurred to me that those
people did not die so the American people could indulge themselves in
the luxury of cynicism. And, frankly, that's just what it is. America
now has -- we have the strongest economic performance of any of the
advanced countries in the world. We're bringing the deficit down at a
very rapid rate. We're increasing our investment in education and
training. We're seriously dealing with crime, with welfare reform, with
health care for the first time in decades. We have broken gridlock in
the Congress, bills that languished around for six or seven years like
the Brady Bill and the Family and Medical Leave Bill have passed. The
economy in St. Louis is booming.

There is no reason to be cynical. But the American people
keep being told that things are bad and politicians are corrupt and the
system's broken. That's just not true.

You look at what we're coming to St. Louis to celebrate
today, this Summer of Service. We've got 7,000 young Americans who are
going to be earning money for their college education by working and
making their communities safer all across this country. In the fall,
20,000 young Americans, doing community service work, earning money for
an education, helping to solve problems.

These kids aren't cynical. They know that their country is
a good place and they're going to make it better. We've got a lot of
serious problems, and frankly, we can't afford this cynicism. But it's
all the rage today.

Q Mr. President, let me butt in here, if I might, just to
talk about cynicism in America and ask for your comments on the story
that we saw earlier this week. You talked about your trip to Normandy,
and we read in the papers that members of the White House staff were
accused of stealing 13 blue George Washington -- U.S.S. George
Washington carrier towels with the GW insignia, four U.S.S. GW
bathrobes, 12 plain bathrobes and 55 white towels from that carrier.

Now, this was not a bunch of school children. These were
White House staffers, management, accused of stealing, ripping off,
these towels in the -- from the ship. My question is, I mean, how do
you explain this? I think this would explain some of our cynicism.
People say, who are these people in the White House?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, we're not sure that
just the White House staff did that. There were press people. There
were lots of other people on that boat who were not members of the White
House staff. We think it -- I'm not entirely sure it was. And the
George Washington is very, very upset by the press reports that those
towels, which were obviously taken as souvenirs, were taken by all the
White House staff. They never said that we stole anything. That's the
kind of thing I'm talking about.

But let me just say this -- someone in the White House
personally reimbursed the George Washington for all of them, because
they felt so bad. And the people who were running the aircraft carrier
said that they were astonished that the White House staff was charged
with taking all those things -- that there were members of the press
there, there were other people on that carrier. They weren't at all
sure that White House staff had done that. But someone on my staff was
so upset that anybody had done it, that they reimbursed them entirely so
that they didn't lose a thing on it.

But, you know, I could give you a lot of examples -- a year
ago there was a widely-reported story that I kept airplane traffic
waiting an hour in Los Angeles to get a haircut in an airport. That
wasn't true either. It wasn't true at the time. And I told the press
it wasn't true. They ran the story anyway. Then four weeks later when
the FAA filed their official report, they said, no, there were no planes
kept waiting.

Now, I am not responsible for stories that are written that
are not fully accurate or untrue, but it feeds into this cynicism.

Last year the Congress and the President, according
to all nonpartisan reports, had the most productive year working
together, getting things done for America, dealing with difficult
issues, of any first year of a president since the end of World War II,
except Dwight Eisenhower's first year and President Johnson's first
year, which were about the same. And to be frank, we did it under more
difficult circumstances with tougher issues.

Look at all the things you could have asked me about, and
you just asked me that. Did you know that there were other people on
that aircraft carrier? Did you know there were press people on the
aircraft carrier? Did you know that the -- that the carrier had been
fully reimbursed out of the private pocket of a White House staff member
who was so upset about it?

THE PRESIDENT: I mean, part of the problem in this country
today is that -- this is a good country with a lot of people working
hard to get things done. And the American people are entitled to have
some balanced and fair picture of what's going on.

We've had 3.5 million new jobs come into this economy since
I've been President -- far more than in the previous four years
combined. Most Americans don't even know it, because that's not the
purpose of a lot of what's communicated to them.

And I think that -- I have a very high responsibility. I
don't mind you asking me whether I should set an example on campaign
contributions, but there are a lot of other examples that need to be set
in this country. And I think the people who communicate to the American
people need to ask themselves, what are we telling the people? Are we
telling them the whole truth? Do they know what's good as well as
what's bad in this country. And when we make a mistake, then we fess up
to it.

I think that there is a lot of cynicism in this country.
But frankly, I think there are a lot of vested interests that are
promoting the cynicism.

Q Mr. President, let's talk about that just a little bit.
Today, or yesterday, the Republicans in the Senate asked you to disavow
a remark that I believe Representative Fazio made about evangelical
Christians. At the same time you've talked about extremists in the
other party, the Republicans, that you say may be trying to launch a
cultural war. They're attacking you in very personal, derogatory,
moralistic terms. Is this the state of political debate in America
today, where we call each other names?

THE PRESIDENT: Of course, it is. Let me say, first of
all, you have never found me criticizing evangelical Christians. I have
welcomed the involvement in our political system of all people, and
especially people of faith. I have bent over backwards as a governor
and as a President to respect the religious convictions of all
Americans. I have strong religious convictions myself.

But that is very different -- that is very different from
what is going on, when people come into the political system and they
say that anybody that doesn't agree with them is God-less, any one who
doesn't agree with them is not a good Christian, anyone who doesn't
agree with them is fair game for any wild charge, no matter how false,
for any kind of personal, demeaning attack.

I don't suppose there's any public figure that's ever been
subject to any more violent, personal attacks than I have, at least in
modern history, anybody's who's been president. That's fine. I deal
with them. But I don't believe that it's the work of God. And I think
that's what the issue is. I do not believe that people should be
criticized for their religious convictions. But neither do I believe
that people can put on the mantle of religion and then justify anything
they say or do. I think that's what Mr. Fazio was talking about.

We don't need a cultural war in this country. We've never
done very well when our politics has been devoted to dividing us along
grounds of race, religion, creed, morality. We haven't done very well.
We've got a lot of serious challenges in this country. And we need to
pull together and face them. Should we have arguments about moral
issues? Of course, we should. But they ought to be honest and careful
and straightforward and respectful. And, frankly, they're not today.

Q Are you talking about folks like the Reverend Jerry
Falwell, who through his infomercials is selling a videotape critical of
you?

THE PRESIDENT: Absolutely. Look at who he's talking to.
Does he make full disclosure to the American people of the backgrounds
of the people that he's interviewed that have made these scurrilous and
false charges against me? Of course, not. Is that in a good Christian
spirit? I think it's questionable.

But I think it's very important that the Democrats be
careful -- let me say this -- to make a clear distinction between
tactics with which they do not agree and radical positions with which
they do not agree, and the whole notion of evangelical Christians being
involved in our politics. I think that evangelical Christians should be
good citizens, should be involved in our politics. They can be
Republicans or Democrats, they can do whatever they want. But remember
that Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple. He didn't try to
take over the job of the money changers.

Q (Laughter.) Mr. President, world financial markets
today report a continued slide of the U.S. dollar against other world
currencies. What can or should the United States government do to halt
this slide?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, the Secretary of Treasury will have
an announcement about it today. Let me say, just make one point about
it -- this is a very -- a development that is puzzling a lot of
economists, because our economy is performing so well. Our job growth
is greater than any other of the advanced countries. Our unemployment
rate is lower than any of the advanced countries, except Japan.

In a funny way the currency values are running in the
opposite direction of economic strength because Japan has a great trade
surplus with us, as you know. If their economy is weak, no matter what
they do, they can't lower the trade surplus because they don't have the
money to buy more American products if their own economy is weak.

So in a funny way, the perception of a weak economy in
Japan has driven the American dollar down against the Japanese yen
because their trade surplus has continued to be high. The German
economy, thank goodness, is coming back a little bit, and that's a good
thing, but it strengthens the German mark. The American dollar is
actually stronger against a lot of other currencies in the world than it
was a year ago. I think it's important that we not overreact to this.
But the Secretary of the Treasury will have a statement today which will
demonstrate the course that we're taking. And I think it's a prudent
thing to do.

Q If I sense anything today, it seems like a frustration
on your part about an inability or just -- for some reason, you haven't
gotten across to the American people the messages that you want to get
across. Is that pretty much true?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, let me ask you something -- I'm
coming to St. Louis to inaugurate the Metrolink, a federal project,
which is good for St. Louis; to talk about the Summer of Service and the
crime bill -- the most important crime legislation in the history of the
United States; and the national service program, which is going to have
thousands of young people working to make our communities safer -- all
of those things, initiatives under my administration, and you didn't ask
me about any of them. (Laughter.)

So I'm not frustrated about it exactly, but I tell you, I
have determined that I'm going to be aggressive about it. After I get
off the radio today with you, Rush Limbaugh will have three hours to say
whatever he wants. And I won't have any opportunity to respond. And
there's no truth detector. You won't get on afterwards and say what was
true and what wasn't.

So all I'm tell you is, I'm going to be far more aggressive
because the American people are entitled to know what's going on good in
this country.

When I go overseas -- I just got back from Europe, and the
European press came up to me after -- on several occasions -- members of
the press in Europe, and say, what is going on in your country? You've
got things going well; you are nothing like they portray you; the things
that are happening are positive; we are bewildered. Members of the
press in Europe said that to me repeatedly. So I decided instead of
being frustrated, I needed to be aggressive, and I'm going to be
aggressive from here on in. I'm going to tell what I know the truth to
be.

Q No more Mr. Nice Guy?

THE PRESIDENT: I'm going to be very nice about it, but I'm
going to be aggressive about it.

Q Well, let me ask you a little something about health
care, because I know this has been the number one, or at least in the
top three in terms of issues for you. And you promised long ago to veto
any bill that crossed your desk that did not promise 100 percent health
care coverage in the United States. You said you'd veto that -- any
bill that did not insure every single living American.

THE PRESIDENT: -- universal -- we need to have universal
coverage. That's what I said.

Q Are you willing to compromise on this right now if it
turns out to be a political reality that Congress cannot go for the full
universal health care?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think Congress will adopt universal
health care. There may be some minor debates about exactly how to
define that, but the real issue is, is will Congress provide health
insurance to all working Americans. Will they provide a mechanism to do
it. I still think there's a good chance they'll do it.

Now, to go back to the first question you asked,
there have been tens of millions of dollars in kind of disinformation
spent to falsely characterize the approach that I wanted to take. I am
very flexible and always have been about how we do it. But I do
believe that it is not rational for the United States to be the only
country in the world that can't figure out how to guarantee health care
coverage to middle class working Americans. And in fact, we're going
in reverse. We're losing ground. We've got a smaller percentage of
our people insured than we did 10 years ago. All the other advanced
countries insure everybody, and yet spend 40 percent more of our income
on health care than anybody else does. It doesn't make any sense to
me.

So I think Congress will find a way to do this. I think
they'll measure up for the challenge. And I'm going to keep working
with them. I think there's lots of different ways to do it, and I think
we'll find a way to do it. I'm very, very hopeful now. And I think Mr.
Gephardt's hopeful now.

REPRESENTATIVE GEPHARDT: I really am. I think this is
going to happen this year. The Congress is making progress every day,
and we're very encouraged about the prospect of getting this done.

I think we're going to have to close off the call. I want
to thank you for spending some time with us and talking to the
President. And we're looking forward to our day in St. Louis. We're
going to be at the Metrolink opening from the airport, and then we're
going to be in Fox Park with the Summer of Service program. And we look
forward to a great day in St. Louis with the President.

Q Mr. President, on behalf of everyone listening to KMOX,
thank you very much for joining us this morning.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Good-bye.

Q And Congressman Gephardt, anytime you're welcome here.
You do nice a weather report for us.